


Glass

by AvaKelly



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Science Experiments, Steampunk World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaKelly/pseuds/AvaKelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful planet, lush and plentiful. There were great cities built by men, their skies padded with flying machines. [...] I want to go inside a Zeppelin, too. I want to beg, to be let outside, but I don't. I listen. She tells me about the sky, about spring and flowers. She tells me about the pocket watches all men carry, including father, and she finds it silly to have one's watch chained to oneself. I find it silly too, to have one's cage chained to oneself. Or was it the other way around?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful planet, lush and plentiful. There were great cities built by men, their skies padded with flying machines.

Mother is telling me about the world outside again. I want to go inside a Zeppelin, too. I want to beg, to be let outside, but I don't. I listen. She tells me about the sky, about spring and flowers. She tells me about the pocket watches all men carry, including father, and she finds it silly to have one's watch chained to oneself. I find it silly too, to have one's cage chained to oneself. Or was it the other way around?

Mother and father always wear white. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of the hallway when the door swings open and there is a man standing there, with the back to the door. He doesn't wear white, never. Mother and father always smile at me. They tell me stories about the world, they tell me how special I am. And I listen, with my palms and forehead pressed hard against the transparent walls of my cage. Let me out. Please, mother, father, let me out. Let me touch.

My cage is not large. All children live in cages, I assume. Mother and father say I must be protected. They say I must never go outside, as the world would not want me there. I don't think they tell the truth. They are lying, I can see it in their eyes. Maybe the outside won't want me, but how can one child hurt it? Isn't it large and beautiful and plentiful?

My cage is in a big room, with brick walls. There are four small windows, high on one side, almost near the ceiling. I can see everything from inside the cage. There are thin wires running through its glass walls, that have a pretty shine when the sun comes in through the windows. Once, father said he needs to test it, so he made it sparkle with blue light. It hurt. Touching it hurt. Please, stop it from hurting. I lay there, on the glass floor of my glass cage, but no one comes. Please, mother, father, let me out. Let me be touched.

Once every year, they unlock my cage. They give me a delicious treat, a piece of cake. They open a small door in the wall, and slide the plate through it. Once every year, mother pushes it in. All my birthdays are the same. They bring me the cake, they smile and sing a song I never understand, then go. The next day, it is back to placing the needle in my arm, by myself. My food is transparent like the glass, coming from a glass tube, flowing from a glass container.

It is time for the cake again. This would my twentieth piece. I can't wait. They come. This year, the treat is white all around and I imagine it smells sweet. At least that's what father said cakes smelled like. Sweet. I wonder if mother's skin would smell sweet too, if she were to hold me tight. Mother pushes the cake on its plate through the small window. Someone calls after her and she turns her head away, to answer. Ah, mother's skin, on her hand, on her wrist, laid bare by the edges of her sleeve. Before I realize, my fingertips rest on her wrist. I close my eyes and my chest swells with a tight sensation. I can feel her blood pulsating. I can hear her screaming somewhere far away, but I can't pull back. Ah, the sweet smell of mother's skin is nothing compared to her sweet, delicious taste. Mother, give me more, mother.

They open one entire wall of my cage, to pull me away. Mother's dry corpse is contorted on the floor, at my feet. My chest feels full, my eyes are about to cry. And they do cry. They do, but not from sorrow. Ah, the indescribable feeling floating around me... like I have never even breathed before. Father! Father, I must tell you... But father comes towards me with shackles in his hands. They rattle and clink.

I grab hold of father's cheeks, resting both my palms on them. No shackles, I try to beg. Please, no more shackles. Not again. But father is drying out in front of me. I can feel his heart stopping as he draws his last breath and the blissful tightness fills my chest again. More, more... there are more men coming in. They don't wear white. None of them. But they taste just the same. Is this what the outside feels like? Is that how sleep looks like? Why are they not moving any more?  I shake mother's arm and it breaks between my fingers. As I step into the hallway and close the door behind me, red letters stand out: Genetic Transmutations. I know how to read them, but I don't understand.

I cry for them. For all of them. The city is quiet now. The Zeppelins flew away. Why were they screaming? I cry for them and my tears taste sweet.

At the edges of the city, many men in uniforms are pointing guns at me. They throw something and the blue sparkling light touches me. It hurts. It hurts and it's dark. It's dark and cold.

***

My cage is round. It is very small, I can barely stand in it. It is transparent, like glass, suspended outside. Below me, a square. In the middle of the square there are corpses in a pile. Yes, I learnt what corpses were, while they were touching my skin with the sparkling blue light. For days, I heard them yelling it through blinding pain.

My cage is all I have. No clothes, no mother, no father, no food. They call at me, from below. Animal! They scream and I cry. But my tears are salty and my stomach aches. Around, on the tallest buildings, red flashing signs roll over the same words again: genetic experiments produce savages. The light hurts my eyes. The hunger hurts my mind.

Mother, father, please, let me out. Let me live.

***

It has been days. Maybe there were weeks? I can't exactly remember. I am on the outside, where I wanted to be. Still, my cage is my world. The shouting and the screaming have stopped. Now it's quiet and I enjoy letting silence embrace me. Somehow, it makes the hurt be... less. My skin is not aching any more. There are markings on it, from the blue sparkles of the painful light and they feel bumpy and sore when I try to touch them.

My cage is my world. My cage is made of glass and I am naked. They turned me into an animal. They did. I have no tears to cry for them. I have only pain in my stomach, as hunger eats away at me from inside. Please, mother, father, make it stop. I beg, again and again. I never begged before, but I beg now. It hurts.

My body trembles and I am losing control. My arms move by themselves as my fingernails scratch at the glass. It hurts. Please, make it stop. Please. There is blood on the glass. It tastes horrible, like the rejection the world has thrown in my face. You are the animals! Not me! Animals! For the first time in my life, I feel rage. It twists and turns like a knot in my belly, it agitates my hunger and claws down to my stomach hurting even more. My chest is swollen, but with pain, rushing out, screaming at the skies. I cry again, but my tears are hot and dry. I cry again and shout, hitting the glass. Again! And again! How many times, I can't remember. When I open my eyes again, it is night.

I cry. I suffocate and I cry. My blood smells putrid. My cage tastes bitter.

After a while, my fingers draw absent lines in the tear stained blood. They do it by themselves. At times, the tiniest of pricks makes drops of blood gush through the fingertips. It takes me a while to realise that there is a crack in the glass. There is a crack in the glass. My glass. My cage. Outside.

***

Once upon a time, there was a planet, quiet and dry. There were great cities built by men, their streets padded by corpses.

Mother, father, you were wrong. I am not special.

I am just hungry.


End file.
